"A recent report of a female participant in 'last year's] Boston Marathon dying from 'a form of] encephalopathy 'a brain disease] because she ingested excessive volumes of a sports drink before and during the race, exposes a...debate that has raged for more than a decade. At issue is how much should athletes drink during exercise.

"From antiquity to the late 1960's, athletes were advised not to drink during exercise since it was believed that fluid ingestion impaired athletic performance. The publication in 1969 of an incorrectly titled article, "The dander of an inadequate water intake during marathon running,..," provided the impetus for change, even though the study neither examined a marathon race nor did it identify any danger. Rather, the most dehydrated athletes won those...races, as is usually the case. This article's incorrect title provided the ...incentive for numerous studies, many funded by a fledgling sports drinks industry...

There were four assumptions made. "Firstly, that all the weight lost during exercise must be replaced if health is to be protected and performance is to be optimized... Secondly, that the sensations of thirst underestimate the real fluid requirements during exercise. Thus athletes must be told how much to drink during exercise. Thirdly, that the fluid requirements of all athletes are always similar so that a universal guideline is possible. Fourthly, high...fluid intake can do no harm. Thus athletes 'were] advised to replace all the water lost through sweating (that is, loss of body weight), or consume the maximal amount that can be tolerated...

"But none of these ideas is evidence based...'not scientific]

"To protect all exercisers from this preventable condition 'encephelopathy], rational and evidence based advice must be provided...Recent adoption of...guidelines by USA Track and Field (www.usatf.org) provides the hope that this sad scientific aberration has finally run its course." Emphasis added.

While Exercising--To Drink or not to Drink? Bibliography

British Medical Journal, vol. 327, 2003. By: Timothy David Noakes, Discovery Health Chair of Exercise & Sports Med., Dept. of Human Biology, U. of Cape Town, S. Africa.